2001
2000 2001 2002 Events * Sunni Islamist terrorists attack the WTC and Pentagon on September 11. * Bombing and arson atacks by domestic rightwing terrorists of an abortion provider in Washington state in June. They also carry out an arson attack on an abortion provider in Kentucky in April. * Neo-liberal Argentine economic crisis erupts, default on loans, governments fall and riots erupt in once prosperous country. * China's population is 1,276.27 million. * EPA finally adopts standards to reduce arsenic in drinking water. Timeline January * January 2: Nigerian Embassy in Rome reports theft by burglary of letterhead stationary, docuemnts and official seal. There ar no arrests. * January 20: George W. Bush inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States. President Bill Clinton leaves office as the most popular president in recent memory, as measured by approval ratings. * January 20: Bill Clinton issues executive pardon for Samuel Loring Morison, who had been convicted of releasing confidential information. February * February 12: Darwin Day * February 13: After entering the U.S., Zacharias Moussaoui begins flight lessons at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Egan, Minnesota. March * March: Russian President Vladimir Putin names Sergei Ivanov as KGB crony Russian Defense Minister. * March 19: Italian Red Brigades assassinate economist Marco Biagi. April * April 1: Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is arrested after a 36 hour standoff in Belgrade. He faces war crimes charges from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. * April 1: The first legal same sex marriages in the world are performed in the Netherlands. * April 9: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) orders that all U.S. stock markets transition from listing prices in fractions to listing prices in decimal points. * April 30: Speaking to reporters at an Associated Press meeting in Toronto, V.P. Cheney derides energy conservation and states that fossil fuels are the only viable energy options. May * May 10: French parliament votes unanimpously to declare slavery a crime against humanity. * May 17: Second Bush administration issues National Energy Policy (NEP), a.k.a. the Cheney Report, committed to expanding the U.S. dependence on oil as an energy source. * May 26: Vermont Senator James Jeffords announces he will leave the Republican Party and hand control of the Senate to the Democrats. * May 31: Russian Vice Admiral German Alexeyevich Ugrimov dies in his office in Khankala, Chechnya. Suicide or murder? June * June 1: Nepali Crown Prince (and gun ethusiast!) Diprendra kills his parents, siblings, five other close relatives and then himself with automatic weapons. Rumors continue to circulate that it was a royal palace coup by others. * June 18: Seattle Intelligencer reports that the FBI is facing increasingly sophisticated "eco-terrorists." July * July 4: Head of FBI Counterterrorism Dale Watson expects an al-Qaeda terrorist attack. Watson later says that he wished he had "500 analysts looking at Usama bin laden threat information instead of two." * July 11: Attorney General John Ashcroft announces that domestic terrorism is his top priority at the National Governor's Conference. Ashcroft touted the FBI's ability to subvert terrorist attacks. August * August 6: President George W. Bush receives a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside United States". President Bush stays on vacation on his Texas "ranch." * August 13: Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro visits Yasukuni Shrine. * August 15: Minneapolis Field Office of the FBI initiates intelligence investigation of Zacharias Moussaoui. * August 20: Sir Frederick Hoyle dies in Bournemouth, England. * August 24: Minneapolis FBI contacts CIA desk officer at the Counterterrorism Center about Zacharias Moussaoui. * August 25: Parliamentary Election in Fiji. September * September: Massacre in the regional parliament in Zug, Switzerland leaves 15 dead and 14 wounded. * September 11: Al-Qaeda launches major terrorist attack against United States, hijacking four airplanes and using them as missiles to destroy the World Trade Center and severly damage the Pentagon. In all, 2992 people are presumed dead. * September 17: New York Stock Exchange Reopens after 9/11 & Crashes 684.61 points in response to the 9/11 attacks. * September 18: Under pressure form the 2nd Bush White House Christian Right leader Rev. Jerry Falwell forced to apologize for blaming the September 11 attacks on heathen, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians and the ACLU. * September 21: Pakistani ISI (secret service) personnel operating with the Taliban are ordered out of Afghanistan. * September 29: Former military dictator of South Vietnam Nguyễn Văn Thiệu dies in Newton, Massachusetts. October * October 7: United States goes to war in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and disrupt his Al-Qaeda organization. Rapid victory on the ground results in apparent vindication of the Rumsfeld Doctrine of achieving military goals with minimal troop strength (making extensive use of high technology, special forces, and local proxies). Civilian Pentagon appointees in Bush Administration thereby gain clout at the expense of their critics. * October 15: Italian intelligence agency SISMI gives CIA in Rome a report about a supposed deal between Niger and Iraq for uranium. Uncorroborated. * October 26: Bush signs USA Patriot Act. November * November 9-14 Doha Round, or Fourth Ministerial in Qatar. No anti-WTO demonstrations allowed in this Kingdom. * November 12: Kabul falls to the Northern Alliance and the Taliban government flees. * November 16: The FAA requires that airport security screeners havd U.S. citizenship. 10,000 of 28,000 screeners are foreign born. * November 28-30: The Battle of Tora Bora - Osama bin Laden and core group of Al Qaeda leaders escape into tribal, mountainous zone along the Pakistani border because the United States refused to commit enough troops. December * December 1: Operation Tarmac sweeprs airports of undocumented airport workers. * December 13: Kashmiri Islamist terrorists attack the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. India refrains from launching general war against Pakistan as the responsible state sponsor of the terror. * December 20: Léopold Sédar Senghor dies.